Animation Contemporaries

Animation Studios

How did Edwin gain the knowledge and experience in order to have written Animated Cartoons?The book was published in February 1920. Although we have no information to help answer that question, it seems possible that he either worked for or collaborated with one or more of the dozen or so animation studios that existed in New York City (NYC), where he lived before 1920.

Fort Lee, NJ, was the motion picture film capital in the early 1900s.NYC attracted many comic strip artists that contributed to newspapers and magazines.As early animators were obsessive with drawing, the metropolitan New York area became the center of animation studios.

A great source of information about early animation studios is Michael Sporn’s Splog – NFB Animation Chart.This chart was originally created by André Martin and sold at the 1967 Montreal World Exhibition of Animation Cinema.It chronicles the early history of animation through the Golden Age (1941).

Animation studios were in a state of flux during the industry’s beginning years.Some companies existed for only a few years and then merged with other companies.New companies would sometimes hire animation staff away from competitive studios, luring employees with better pay.While some companies collaborated with each another, others were unscrupulous, stealing production methodologies and pirating works.

From the NFB Animation Chart, we know that the following animation studios existed between 1915 and 1919.

As shown in the list above, there were a number of animation studios from which Edwin could have learned the trade. Each studio had its own methods for making an animated cartoon, even though they may have shared basic practices. No doubt, the studios refined their methodologies over time.

What Edwin wrote about in Animated Cartoons was not an exposure of industry trade secrets as much as an explanation of general practices that were used.Animated Cartoons was not a how-to manual for the established studios.Just the opposite.The audience were people that did not work in a studio.

It would still be great to know the backstory of how Edwin learned about animated cartoons in order to write a book about it.

Writings Preceding Animated Cartoons

There were several pieces written about animation, before Edwin’s book Animated Cartoons was published.

John Robert McCrory, How to Draw for the Movies, 1918.This 40-page booklet covers the following topics:the process of animating a cartoon, drawing for movies, industry-related terms, how to draw for quality results in motion, and thoughts on how to advertise and market your animated film.

So, Edwin was certainly not the first to publish about animated cartoons. However, he undoubtedly had the most detailed coverage of the subject. In the 261 page book, Animated Cartoons covered these topics: animation history, methodologies, movement on humans/animals/objects, general guidance, and future speculations of applications of the medium.The number of copies of Animated Cartoons that were sold is unknown, but it was initially published and distributed in the United States, England and Germany.In the United States it was reprinted several times within its first six years.